The Button Man: A Hugo Marston Novel (14 page)

But he had higher goals in mind. At least, higher from his perspective. A story printed tomorrow would be nothing more than wrapping for fish and chips by the weekend, because the reality was that Dayton Harper and Hugo Marston would slink back to their embassy and be whisked off to America, safe and sound. There’d be no justice.

So he’d wait and get his story. He’d give that conniving pair one more chance to live up to their bargain, and it galled him because he knew he didn’t have much choice. Did they know that? Did they know that this was his big opportunity? Journalists were being let go all around him, and he was past switching careers if his services were no longer required. No, he’d seen that before.

He sat in his Mini, one hand on the steering wheel, the other clutching his keys, his breath coming and going in little puffs before his eyes, gentle clouds of warmth on a cold night. He sat there and thought about his father, a man who’d been feared and respected, at the top of his profession. Too proud or stubborn or some damn thing to realize what was coming. He’d not just lost his job, but the whole damn profession had gone down the tubes and then, as now, it was happening all around. Technology hadn’t been the culprit then, but Walton wasn’t about to be caught short like his old man. Out of work and sitting in his chair at home, a bottle in one hand and a glass he never bothered using in the other. It only took him six months to do it, and they found him one morning in his underwear, lying by his armchair, the empty bottle under him, his skin yellow and burnished with fist-sized bruises that made young Harry, who six months previously had wanted to be just like his dad, think the old man had been beaten to death in the night.

He had, sort of. Beaten by time. Beaten relentlessly from the inside by the contents of a few hundred bottles of cheap whisky.

But Harry still had a shot to get it right. If only the old man were around to see.

The red Mini left the parking lot of the pub with a squeal of tires. The anger had returned, and Harry Walton wanted to catch the American tank before it got too far ahead. But a nail, just one little piece of metal, put paid to his chase after half a mile when the car pitched to the right and Walton had to fight with the steering wheel as he brought the car into a lay-by to see what was what.

He changed the tire quickly, despite the dark, his movements efficient, precise, and fueled by anger and desperation. Old cars, even small ones, had real spares in them, not like those stupid little donut wheels they put in the new cars. No, Walton was down for a few minutes but he wasn’t out. No chance of catching up, but he knew where they were going, so he’d meet them there.

He wondered for a moment what they’d do if they ran into the man with the gun again. He didn’t understand what they might have in mind should that happen. But that was their problem, and maybe it’d be enough to slow them and let him catch up.

A flat tire for him, and a man with a gun for them. Sounded fair.

But when he pulled into the muddy lane, he saw no car and no man. Walton drove slowly, suddenly aware that he’d used up his spare, knowing that the flint stones or debris from a thousand years of traffic along the track could slice into the old rubber tires and leave him stranded.

That’s when Mr. Shotgun will appear, he thought. That’d be just my luck.

Ahead of him, trees danced in and out of the shadows caused by his headlights, and the darkness away from the beams seemed complete. The flickering branches, reaching out and then pulling back, made him want to blast through this creepy place, but he fought the urge. Care was essential, he knew. In all things.

And ghosts weren’t real.

A flash of light right in front of him made Walton stamp on the brake, and the little car skidded just a little before stopping. Someone, a car, was pointed directly at him, someone who had only just turned his headlights on.

That damned Mr. Shotgun, Walton just knew it. Probably sitting on the verge in a clapped-out old Land Rover just waiting for someone to shoot.

Then the lights angled away for a moment and Walton realized that the vehicle had driven off the track to let him pass. Or lure him closer.

He put the car in gear and started forward, inching toward the lights, unsure how much passing room there was, if there was any at all. But then they were nose to nose, like lovers, brushing past with care, his car rocking over the potholes even at this speed. It wasn’t a Land Rover at all, and when his window drew level with that of the other driver he felt obliged to look over, compelled to see and, for politeness’s sake, to acknowledge the other man.

But Harry Walton didn’t wave, and nor did the other driver. The face, so familiar yet so stark and pale, those famous eyes burning forward as if the man could will himself down the lane by staring through the windshield. Even the hair seemed familiar, like a bedraggled puppy coming inside on a rainy day.

Harry Walton’s mouth fell open, just a little, before he put his foot on the brake pedal and stopped beside Mr. Dayton Harper, sometime movie star, sometime fugitive, and whose life story would now become the sole possession of Harry Walton, the freelance reporter who was about to become a very famous journalist indeed.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

F
or the first time in a very long while, Hugo was at a complete loss. He was standing in the pitch black with an almost-stranger, in a place he didn’t know, with no car.

He knew the main road that led to the town of Baldock was about a mile away, a slow and not very safe walk on this road by night, but he didn’t know what else to do. If Pendrith had gone in search of food, a bathroom, even a bottle of something, he’d come back this way.

They started walking, their footfalls the only sound on the mud-spackled road. They had traveled less than a hundred yards when twin headlights cut through the dark, dazzling them. Hugo put out an arm and grabbed Merlyn, pressing their bodies into the bank to avoid being hit. When the vehicle was thirty yards away, the nose dipped and the engine calmed, as if the driver had seen them. Seconds later, Hugo realized it was Pendrith in the Cadillac.

“Frightfully sorry,” Pendrith said, through an open window. “Tried phoning but the call wouldn’t go through. Dashed around the back wondering if maybe you’d headed out that way, but saw the blighter with the gun again and had to turn back.”

“Glad you did,” said Hugo. “Now hop out and let me drive. And say hello to our passenger.”

Pendrith turned in the driver’s seat and looked over Hugo’s shoulder. “I say, what the bloody hell is she doing here?”

“I’ll tell you on the way.” Hugo went around and opened the driver’s side door and waited as Pendrith slid out. With everyone buckled in, Hugo sped to the lay-by and executed a quick three-point turn. “Now then, Merlyn,” he said. “Where to?”

She’d called it a farm, but that was too rustic a word. It was a manor house, redbrick in the symmetrical Georgian style with five large, rectangular windows across the top floor and dormer windows, once for the servants’ quarters, Hugo assumed, set into the roof. Thick ivy clambering up the brick walls, and the cracks that made way for the clinging green tendrils, suggested that there were no servants now, nor had there been for some time. The ends of the house were capped with tall chimney stacks, and at least one of them still worked, judging by the smell of wood smoke in the air.

Hugo knocked on the door, and after ten seconds of silence the visitors swapped glances. Hugo looked past them and saw no cars, no signs that the house was occupied. Just the chimney smoke.

“Wait here,” Hugo said, “I’ll check around the back.”

Merlyn started to say something, then changed her mind. She waited with Pendrith as Hugo moved off to his right, peering into each window that he passed. So far, all had been dark. He reached the front right corner of the house and looked into the night, able to make out a lawn stretching away into the darkness as it reached around to the back of the house. He stood there for a moment, then made his way back to the front door and, without saying anything, turned the handle.

“You sure that’s a good idea?” Pendrith said.

“Nope,” Hugo said. “But I don’t have any others.”

The door opened silently, and Hugo stepped into the house. Pendrith followed him, and Merlyn stood in the doorway, eyes wide and worried.

“Police!” Hugo called. “Anyone home?”

Pendrith looked at him sideways. “‘Police’?” he whispered.

Hugo turned and flashed a quick smile. “You’d rather I announced us as burglars?”

They moved into the hallway. To the right, a staircase curved up to a landing and then on to the second floor. On their left, a door stood open and Hugo stepped through it into an untidy study. In front of him sat a large wooden desk, littered with pens and glass paperweights. Sagging cardboard boxes lined the wall on the left, and opposite them, stacks of yellowing papers spilled across a leather couch that had also seen better days.

He joined the other two and led them past the staircase into a large room that took up the back half of the house and, in daylight, looked out over the back garden. The left half of the high-ceilinged space was used as a dining room and was dominated by an oversized table covered in a cloth that had once been white, a dozen chairs tucked tidily under its skirt. Former generations of the Drinker family gazed at each other across the table, grim and formal in their gilt frames. On the right side was the sitting room, populated by cloth couches and a scattering of armchairs, an even mixture of cracked leather and faded floral prints. Here, the pasty-faced relatives made way for various bucolic scenes, a few in heavy oil and a handful of smaller and more cheerful watercolors. One of the large windows had been converted into French doors, and he guessed that a patio lay just outside.

The room smelled musty, dusty even, and Hugo saw that the walk-in fireplace glowed orange. He listened but heard no one, no sounds at all. And yet he felt sure they weren’t the only ones here. He started to his left, to head through the dining room toward where he thought the kitchen would be, when a sudden thump from upstairs stopped them. A weak cry filtered through the ceiling and they heard another thump, then silence.

Hugo pushed past Pendrith and Merlyn, heading back toward the stairs. He grabbed the banister and started up, taking them two at a time and drawing his gun as he ran. He paused at the top and looked both ways. He saw no one but the sound came again, from his left, so he went that way, slower now, more careful. He heard Pendrith behind him and hoped the Englishman had had the sense to make Merlyn wait at the bottom of the stairs.

The hallway was wide and dim, and on each side there were two closed doors leading to bedrooms or bathrooms, Hugo assumed. From one of them, on his left, light was leaking out from under the door. He looked down the hallway, but the others seemed to be dark. He stood to one side of the door and motioned for Pendrith to stop where he was, ten feet away. Hugo rapped on the door with the butt of his gun.

“Anyone in there?” he called. “Police here.”

From inside the room they heard another cry, and Hugo recognized the sound of a man in pain. He reached down and tried the handle, and it turned in his hand. Still to one side, he pushed the door open and light spilled out into the hall. Hugo moved into the doorway, gun raised, and found himself in a large bedroom.

Directly opposite him, propped up with his back against a wooden dresser, sat a man clutching his stomach. Blood coated the man’s left hand, and his right held an object that Hugo couldn’t immediately recognize. His legs stuck straight out toward the door, and his eyes rolled slowly up as Hugo moved closer. They had the glazed look Hugo had seen a handful of times before when he was with the FBI, a look that spoke of a man in deep physical shock, a whisper away from death.

Hugo turned when he heard Pendrith speak behind him. “I’ll call for an ambulance.”

“Good,” said Hugo. “Tell them to hurry.” He turned to the wounded man. “Are you Brian Drinker?”

The man seemed to nod, but Hugo wasn’t sure. Red bubbles appeared on his lower lip and the man groaned, then managed a whisper. “Yes.”